Ask Your Reading Guide a thoughtful guide for reading Paine, here to help you read Thomas Paine's Rights of Man closely — its point-by-point rebuttal of Burke, its theory of natural rights, and the practical government program in Part Two.
The Argument What is Paine's case against Burke's defense of hereditary government? How does Paine distinguish natural rights from civil rights, and why does the distinction matter to his argument? Why does Paine think no generation can bind a future one to a constitution? What concrete policies does Paine propose in Part Two, and what does he think they would replace?
Context & Legacy What specifically in Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France is Paine responding to? Why was Paine prosecuted in England for this book, and what happened to him as a result? How does Paine's theory of rights compare to the American Declaration of Independence and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man? What in Paine's Part Two program resembles the modern welfare state, and what's different?